To the question of the trial of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Federation with the city of Ts.

Comrades write to me today that I don't write enough "positive" articles for the newspaper. True. Yesterday I was still able to write, but today, convinced from No. 13 of "Tr[udovaya] Pr[avda]" that my friends have got involved in an archly stupid "trial" with the anonymous Ts.1, I am unable to write.

Is it not arbitration with subjects - participants like Sokolovs2and Krestinskys3? - with anonyms from the liqu[idatorial] newspaper of Messrs. Dana and Martov, is such supernatural stupidity, such a pleasure for the bourgeoisie (in the person of the liquidators), such a rejection of the organized workers of Russia, who long ago and at once, in the person, for example, of the representatives of the 11 trade unions of Moscow4 , accused the liqu[idato]r press publicly of being "slanderers" and called upon the working class to pass over the slanderers with contempt, - that one sinks to the ground.

T h e representatives of the organized proletariat, w h o do not have the courage to carry out the call of the workers and to pass by the slanderers, w h o go to the courts as sanonyms because of an absurd, ridiculous, stupidest polemical trick, - there is something to despair about!

Today or tomorrow I will send an article to "Enlightenment "5 explaining the "case" of M[alinov]sky. I must make sure that it goes in No. 6, June. Immediately!

If you go to a bourgeois court, you will be ridiculed (and rightly so, and I would be ridiculed!), for there is not the slightest corpus delicti in the nonsensical babble of an anonymous person!

If you go to the arbitration court, you should be publicly ridiculed by all reasonable s[ocial]-democrats, for you are doing a splendid service to the liquidators by condescending to try an anonymous from Dan and Martov because of a silly slander. What is the trial about? Slander against the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Federation, that it is "covering up"?

What does it mean to "cover up"? After all, it is to expose, i.e., to want to expose why Mal[inovski] died! And Mal[inovsk]y is condemned by us and the Jews for not explaining everything. Mal[inovsky] is condemned only for not explaining, for nothing else. For there is no offense in leaving. The misdemeanor and the crime for which he is excluded is only inexplicability. The "governing body" has concluded this case by recognizing and punishing inexplicability.

And you allow scoundrels, scum, stinkers, whom the working class has passed by with contempt (see the resolution of the representatives of 11 trade unions of Moscow, printed in "Tr[udovaya] Pr[avda]"), to dig into this! And who are the judges? Fools on your side. The Sokolovs and the Krestinskys, secretly able to shake hands with Martov!? And the "third parties"? Bourgeois, always sympathizing with Martov!!!!

I disclaim all responsibility.

I have written hundreds of times and written in notebooks, proving (I have the experience of 20 years, and you have not experienced anything here anyway) the absurdity of "trials" with vipers. The editor of "Tr[udovoy] Pr[avda]" answered me. - "don't be afraid about the courts; they're learned." And now you are getting involved in a "trial"!

It is unwise to scold Mal[inov]sky - conscious workers do not beat a lying man. Mal[inov]sky is condemned. To beat a convict... guess what it's called? Mal[inov]sky was convicted for not explaining the deed to them, and what was the personal lining of the suicide, you don't know, do you? Is it reasonable for a person to scold the condemned with the worst words, not knowing the motives that the condemned did not want to reveal? Where is reason and logic in that? Are you annoyed that the deserter has screwed you (and all of us) up the most? I understand that. But that's why he was convicted! Why else beat a man lying down? Why give pleasure to scoundrels and stinking gossips, who only want to bother, to spare the wound?!

We must beat the liqu[idators] by printing 3-5 lines every day: "The dirty slanderers of M[artov] and D[an] are publicly stigmatized by the workers' unions. Beware of the slanderers! They will be exposed!"

And what about the "courts" with bourgeois as judges will confuse and dirty you and take you away from business and work to squabble, I guarantee you.

I sent a telegram to bring the Papuan's testimony6. Your first telegram7 was not clear, that's why I thought that C. = Papuan. Because you wrote in the telegram that "the Papuan made a direct accusation". Where? Who? If direct, why don't you telegraph his name?

If the name cannot be telegraphed, where is the direct accusation?

Who is the Papuan? What is the accusation? Whom did he accuse, you and only you, or the liqu[idato]rams and other bourgeois? If liqu[idato]rams, why do they print the jette? (and if only they print them, we do not believe in M[artov's] and D[ana's newspaper). If only to us, why didn't you point out to him that "the institution in charge investigated the rumors", as it was announced in the press8: it means that it is the duty of an honest person, if he has found out something positive, to inform us (or you to pass it on to us) to pass it on to "the institution in charge that investigated the rumors".

If the Papuan has printed his statement, where is it? Where, when was it printed? Where is his name? Why is it not telegraphed?

If he did not print it, where is the slander?

You think ungodly. We asked you to take a different tone at once ("M[artov] and D[an] are slanderers") and to send a deputy at once. You didn't fulfill our request and went to "court". It's a pity. Very sorry.

V. Ilyin.

P.S. Where to write articles here, when you make us write about "courts"!!!! Ha-ha!

P.P.S. I read Alex[insk]oi's sloka10 in "Day "9. Her husband was beaten for slander. Don't think of "suing" here, for Christ's sake!!! Tactics: either to keep absolutely silent, or 2 lines of petition that "Alex[insk]y has long ago gone after Martov, the slanderer". End of story. End of story.

Fund 2, op. 1, d. 27132 - autograph.

1This is about the note "Bringing to trial" in the newspaper "Trudovaya Pravda" No. 13, June 12, 1914 (St. Art.). It has not been possible to establish who "Mr. Ts" is.

2Sokolovs - from Sokolov N.D. - sworn attorney, defense counsel at major political trials during the years of Stolypin's reaction.

3Krestinskys - from Krestinskys N.N. - sworn attorney, member of the RSDLP since 1903.

4Opiska. In the newspaper "Way of Truth" No. 92, May 21, 1914 (st.) printed a resolution of ten trade union societies of Moscow. Moscow.

5Referring to No. 6 of the journal "Enlightenment" (June 1914), Lenin's article "The Methods of the Struggle of the Bourgeois Intelligentsia against the Workers" (see: Lenin V.I. Complete Collected Works, vol. 25, pp. 321-352).

6The pseudonym "Papuas" - it was not possible to reveal.

7The telegram has not been found.

8It refers to Lenin's article "The End of Slander" published in the newspaper "Rabochy" No. 4, May 25, 1914 (St. Art.) (see doc. 64).

9 "Den" - a daily liberal newspaper published in St. Petersburg since 1912. On October 26 (November 8), 1917 the newspaper was closed.

It means "Letter to the Editorial Board" by T.S.Teleshova in connection with the attack on her husband - G.A.Aleksinsky. It was printed in the newspaper "Den" No. 157, June 12, 1914.